What Do You Want From Me?
by ronny-of-yore
Summary: Just when Naruto and Sakura were getting closer, Sasuke's death begins a downward spiral in their lives that they may never fully recover from. Commissioned by and written for Leafygirl on the Help Japan LJ comm.


**What Do You Want From Me?**

What's left of Team Kakashi is late to the scene. They can tell by the silence that whatever's happened has already happened. Kakashi, Yamato, Sai, and Sakura: they all know this, feel it in their bones. The forest around them is too silent, like the calm after the storm. Swinging through limbs and jumping through branches, they come upon the last thicket of trees. Finally having fallen to the forest floor, they stand together, knowing that grand destruction awaits them on the other side; they can already make out some of the chaos: a bit of flourished fire here and cracked earth there. And yet neither of the four can stop their steps as they draw ever near.

Sakura is the last to break through the dense foliage. The sun shines in her bottle-green orbs as the clouds above part to reveal the full scale of death and ruin laid out in miles of wide open clearing. In the distance, two familiar figures lay unmoving among the carnage. Hands go to her shoulders as her knees buckle beneath her. Tears pour through her lashes as her gloved fingers fist at her sides. A multitude of emotions swirls like warring tornadoes in her chest as venomous snakes twist and curl in her gut. The urge to vomit is just below the surface, but she forcefully holds it back with a sudden hand to her mouth.

_Must be strong. Must be strong. …Oh, God, I can't—_

Hate-love, hate-love beats in her veins like her own rapid pulse. She can't discern between the two even if she tried. And she's trying. Kami is she trying.

Kakashi is the first to investigate. Yamato is the second. Sai is the one that stays and pulls her to stand, forces her stubborn feet to stumble over themselves like a newborn calf learning to walk. Regardless, he hauls her toward the one that bleeds out even as he shallowly breathes, because … because … the other one isn't breathing. Not anymore.

This time as her scrapped knees hit earth, Sakura's hands aren't idle at her sides. They're swift and in motion, completely chakra-lit, but hardly in control. They're shaking. She's shaking. And she can't see through the blur of tears, can't … raise her gaze above the injured man's chin, can't meet those sorrowful, glazed, watery eyes that make her feel so many right and wrong things.

_Not his fault! Don't hate him! He didn't want to— You shouldn't—_

"I'm … sorry," is the pained croak she hears as she frantically works. She knows it's taking all of his last remaining energy just to say those words and yet… Fat tears clouding her vision, hands glowing, wind blowing her hair into her face, Sakura bites her lip. She does it hard enough to make it bleed and it does. She relishes in the bitter, coppery taste even if it does nothing to calm her, even if it does nothing to stop the pain from gushing out of her mouth like poison.

"Don't," she says and it's a growl. It's loud and harsh and all kinds of wrong in her ears, but she can't summon up the willpower to do anything about it. Not yet. Not now. It's much too soon. There's an oh so familiar, bloodied body behind her and she can only think straight enough to—

"I'm … sorry, Sakura-ch—"

"I said don't!" Her words are barked, shaky and so are her lips and hands, but she's healing the missing chunk in Naruto's side the best way she can.

_Hinata, hurry up damn it. Please, just hurry up and fucking get here._

She knows the pearly-eyed kunoichi's team is right behind her own and she hopes like hell they get here soon, because it's taking everything she's got just to hold the pieces of her fractured self together. She knows the glue will only hold for so long. Hands over the man making her feel so many things, Sakura babbles to him, to herself, to whoever the hell is listening. "You just need to— Need to rest is all. You just need to rest and— and let me fix this. I can do this. I can. So, just shut up and let me do this. Just— just shut up, Naruto. Please, just— just shut up."

And for once, Naruto does as he's told and Sakura is ever so grateful.

* * *

><p>Against his pillow, a bandaged, bedridden Naruto silently broods and Sai pauses in his attempts to sketch the injured man's profile. The ink-user knows what's bothering his friend and so, adjusting himself on his stool, he simply says, "Hag says she's sorry, but she will come tomorrow."<p>

Its day nine in his hospital bed, the food sucks and, looking over to Sai with a frown, so does his company. Naruto hangs his white-wrapped head and grumbles low enough to make his guest strain his hears to hear. "That's what she said yesterday and the day before that… "

At his side, the _scritch-scratch_ of charcoal on paper is steady. However, Sai's face is impassive as he says in something close to a promise, "I will keep asking and she will come."

Both shinobi's attention is soon brought to the room's entrance, to a certain shy kunoichi standing in the doorway holding flowers. Sai gets up to let the purple-haired woman have his seat.

"O-Oh, Sai-kun, y-you don't have to—"

Gathering his things, Sai waves her concern off with words. "It is quite alright. I was just on my way out."

Naruto watches his friend go. He does so praying that Sai finally talks a certain teammate into finally coming to visit.

* * *

><p>On day fourteen of Naruto's hospitalization, he wakes from an afternoon snooze to find that he's no longer alone. Through crusty eyes, he sees a blurry figure standing feet away from the end of his bed, by the room's large picture window in the far wall. Tenderly sitting up, he scrubs his face with his hands and then recognizes the pink hair and that rigid back. He knows she must have heard his movements, because she's suddenly speaking and that desert-dry tone kills any warmth her presence might have brought him.<p>

"I'm sorry. I know I should have come sooner. It's just that I couldn't."

The last words he had spoken to her bubble up to the surface again; it's a knee-jerk reaction, one he can't help. "Sakura-chan, I'm so sorr—"

But just like the last time, she cuts him off.

"Don't," she says, but this time it's not a growl. This time it's different: highly controlled and slightly determined. "I don't want to hear that from you. You shouldn't— You shouldn't have to say it." He sees her hands ball at her sides as she forces out her next words. "It wasn't your fault. Sasuke— He— He brought it on himself. We both know that now and you shouldn't have to— to feel guilty. Not— not about me." He starts to feel like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, but then he watches her fists shake and tremble, knows she's seconds away from crying and he can't do a damn thing to console her, can't even get up out of his goddamn bed to hug her. "I know this. I believe it. I really do, but I still can't— For some reason I still can't— I can't— I'm sorry, I just can't—"

"You can't look at me," Naruto sadly whispers with creases brows and downcast eyes. The weight of her words is like a blow to his chest. He feels like he's left dying all over again in that clearing; he's wishing she'd left him there to die beside his first friend and the man that she…

Hearing Naruto say the words that she can't causes Sakura to fall into a crouch, to fold into herself and Naruto curses his inability to gather her up in his arms and tell her that everything's going to be ok. But he knows it's not. He sees that now. He may have saved the village and so many other's with what he's done, but he… He knows he destroyed any last chance he might have had to be with this woman who loves so strongly even when her love will never be returned. Does it make sense that he falls even deeper in love with her because of that? He doesn't know, but he does and it hurts like hell.

"I knew it," Sakura babbles, huddled there on the floor feeling shamed and disgusted with herself, wholly wishing she could just sink into the floor and up and disappear "I knew it. I knew it was too soon. I said it was, but Sai— He— I knew I shouldn't have come."

Gathering herself up, Sakura quickly and blindly stumbles toward the door. Gripping the doorframe in one white-knuckled hand, before she leaves him, before she leaves all that they could ever be behind, she pauses with her back to him. In a voice filled with raw pain and sadness, her voice breaks as she says her last parting words, "If anyone should be sorry, Naruto, it's me. Don't you blame yourself. Don't you dare. I'm the one at fault here. I'm the one who's sorry. I'm so— I'm just so-so sorry. Goodbye."

Kakashi taught them both how to read beneath the underneath. Yes. Naruto knows exactly what her words mean and they cut like a knife that twists and leaves him bleeding.

* * *

><p>"She what?"<p>

"Transfer. Effective immediately," Sai replies as he cuts up an apple beside Naruto's bedside.

"She can't do that!" Naruto bellows, a healed fist hitting the white sheet-covered mattress, but he knows better. He knew this was coming. He just didn't want to bring himself to admit it, but he has to now.

Sai pops an apple slice into his mouth, chews, swallows, and then moves to answer. "Actually, she can and she did. Apparently, she's opted to teach medical jutsu here at the hospital. She's to start two days from today."

"You mean the day after I get released," Naruto grumbles. He knows this particular arrangement was made on purpose and the ache in his heart hurts a little more.

"Yes," Sai replies, whittling the skin away from another apple slice.

"Didn't you try to stop her? Talk her out of this mess when she first told you?" Naruto accuses feeling helpless and frustrated. He knows he's taking out his anger on his friend, but he can't hold it in. The anger inside is like a living thing trying to burst out of his chest; it's hard to fight the clawing that tears behind his ribs.

However, Naruto's outburst rolls off the ink-user like water down a duck's back. It always does. "No," Sai simply answers after another chew and swallow of an apple slice.

"Well, why not?" Naruto barks, arms heaved in the air.

Sai smiles and Naruto knows the man well enough to know just how fake that expression really is. "Because Sakura has asked me not to."

Naruto's response to that stalls in his throat the moment a familiar visitor appears in his doorway. After pushing the frown from his face, he's forcing a smile, because at least one woman is coming to see him when another one isn't. However, as Sai gets up to go, he tells him, "No. It's alright. Come on, stay."

* * *

><p>It's been two months since Naruto's release from the hospital. In fact, he and his new team of two—Sai and Hinata—just got back from a mission in Rock Country. In fact, just two minutes ago, he'd been standing and giving his team's debriefing report to Konoha's new Rokudaime, one Hatake Kakashi. But that matter is over. Naruto has new business to attend to, namely finding one Haruno Sakura. As he turns a sterile corner in the hospital, Naruto catches sight of her idly weaving between patients and medic-nin's alike while looking intently down at the clipboard she holds. He fights down the flip-flop in his stomach that's tainted by acid and her last parting words.<p>

He knows she doesn't want to see him or talk to him, but he can't help himself. He's always been stubborn and he's not about to change that now. It doesn't matter that, since the moment he'd gotten out of the hospital, she's been making up excuses or having people make up excuses for her so they wouldn't have to see each other or talk. But she can't run from him now. He won't let her. With determination burning in his veins, he's hurrying through the milling people in white coats and hospital gowns. When he's close enough to smell her green-tea shampoo, he reaches out and grabs her arm from behind. The moment she turns wide, jade eyes upon him, he's watching her face immediately swivel away from his own. It hurts and it's enough to make him just the wrong side of angry.

"Naruto, I'm sorry, but I'm kind of busy here. I was just on my way to—"

He can't help himself. He can't. He's trying, but his brain isn't working like it should.

"Look at me," he says, voice a low, chilled tone.

She doesn't answer, just tries to pull away and turn her head further from his face.

"Look. At. Me." His words are a clear demand and yet she still doesn't comply.

Sakura-chan, please," he says now, voice low, pained, almost begging, "Please, just look at me."

This time she does. Slowly she turns, painfully slow, and when their gazes meet, he sees the anguish in her eyes, watches them water over almost immediately, sees her break under his touch. He let's go of her arm and just hangs his head, defeated, because he is defeated. How can he fix this? He doesn't even know where to begin. But he knows this is the end of anything and everything that they could have ever become. Heck, how the hell were they to even continue being friends when just looking at him made her feel so… Naruto didn't even have words for the wrecked way she was looking at him now. It hurts to see her like this, to know that he's the reason that she's this messed up inside.

He tries to pull her into him, to hug her trembling form, unlike how he had been confined to his bed in that damn hospital room two months ago and some change. But the moment he tries to put his arms around her, she flinches, almost as if his touch is going to burn. And so he stops, pulls back, even goes so far as to take a step back from her.

"I'm sorry," He says, because he doesn't know what else to say.

"Don't say that," she tells him, because she knows that he shouldn't have to say it. It isn't right. He isn't at fault. He just doesn't understand. "You don't understand."

"Then tell me, Sakura-chan!" Naruto pleads, because that's really all that he can do. "Make me understand. Please, just yell at me, scream at me, hit me. Do something! Please, just, please."

Scrubbing at her face, not caring that people had stopped to stare, she sobs out, voice wrecked and nose full, "Every time I see you, I s-see him. In the e-end, I lo-loved you both, you idiot. Didn't you know that? But now I c-can't. I just c-can't. N-not anymore. Please, just—P-Please just leave me alone, Naruto. G-Go live your life. B-Be happy. B-Become Hokage. Y-You deserve happiness. J-Just forget about me."

Naruto grabs her shaking hands and squeezes them. He doesn't give a shit that they're making a scene. "You know I can't do that, Sakura-chan."

Head bowed, sniffling and breath hitching, she squeezes back, determinedly saying, "Y-Yes, you can. Y-You can and y-you will. P-Please just— j-just do it for me. I-If you were ever my friend—"

"_I love you_," Naruto heatedly interjects and it is then that a tear of his own falls down his whiskered cheek. It does so, because even then he knows that it will be the last time that he'll ever get to say such words to her, words that he means with ever piece of his slowly breaking heart.

But Sakura soldiers on, because she knows that, however painful, the words have to be said. "I-If you ever l-loved me just do t-this for me. P-Please, Naruto. F-Forget about me. G-Go be happy."

* * *

><p>Towel on her head, fluffy robe wrapped around her body, Sakura stares dumfounded at the woman sitting demurely on the couch by her bed.<p>

"What? You don't need my permiss— We don't even talk any— Really, Hinata, this is stupid. You didn't have to come here to ask me that."—A jut of her chin and a smile that doesn't reach her eyes—"Just go ask him. You two obviously love each other right? It's been what? A year and a half already since you two started dating? He'll be thrilled to get proposed to. Really, he's obviously too stupid to do it himself so just go ask him already."

"I—I know," the kunoichi perched on the edge of green leather says with knit brows, "but you are my friend and I—I just thought I should ask if you were ok with it since…"

"…Since what?" Sakura prods, even though she really doesn't want to hear the rest of that sentence.

"….S-since you love him too."

A playful scoff, "Hinata, there was a time where I— But that feels like ages ago."—A forced wider smile—"Really, I'm fine with it. Besides, I could never have made him happy like you have. You go ask him and you two love birds go be happy."

A hesitant yet hopeful look, "A-are you sure?"

A cross of arms and a single nod, "Yes. I'm sure."

Before saying their goodbyes, the hug Hinata gives her is warm, tight, and genuine … just like Sakura knew it would be.

* * *

><p>"Hag, is everything alright?" Sai's simple question is like a shoulder nudge to the rigid kunoichi standing beside him.<p>

"What?" Sakura idly replies, never taking her eyes off of the happy couple exchanging vows in front of Kami and all the villagers gathered in the square.

However, the single tap of Sai's digit on the back of her hand catches her attention. She pries her eyes from the lovely scene and looks down to her fingers. They're shaking and curled in the side of her pink and blue kimono. Frowning, she forces herself to release the white-knuckled hold she hadn't even been aware she was creating.

"M' fine," she replies, holding her head up and flexing her fingers. She even manages to force a smile.

But false smiles are things that Sai knows all too well. In a bout of rare companionship, he grips her shaking hand in his own and says words that Sakura had once said to him. "Everything will be alright."

Even as Sakura squeezes his hand back, she knows the truth. Things have never been alright and, now, they never will be again.

* * *

><p>A foot idly swinging in the warm summer night's breeze, Naruto's sitting in a tree with his back against the rough bark as his rump rests on a long, sturdy branch. Since marrying his teammate, Hinata's spot has been taken up by TenTen while the pearly-eyed kunoichi went back to Kiba and Shino. TenTen's busy curled on her side, snoring peacefully next to the little fire they have going while Sai sits with his back against a fallen log, across from the sleeping weapon-master. Fully awake, the ink-user's sketchbook and a piece of charcoal are, as usual, held in his gloved hands. Looking over to the man that's well known to be a certain kunoichi's silent companion now, Naruto can't help but call out, "Hey, Sai?"<p>

"Yes?" the dark-haired shinobi questions without looking up. He seems to be staring at the fire. Naruto thinks he could possibly be sketching its flames.

"How is she?"

"She is fine," Sai replies, knowing exactly who his friend is inquiring about. "To be honest, she is fairing the same as the last time you asked, actually. Not much has happened to her except a change in students."

Naruto grunts and then another question prompts his lips to move. The inquiry is out of his mouth before he can check it. "Has she started seeing anyone?"

"No."

"I wonder why?" Naruto ponders aloud and apparently Sai has an answer for that as well.

"She is too busy."

After a snort, Naruto bitterly replies, "Isn't that her answer for everything?"

Sai looks up with creased eyes and upturned lips. "Yes."

Naruto frowns and looks down at his friend again. Something close to jealously squirms in his gut as he idly comments, "Well, at least she's not too busy for you."

At his words, Naruto notices the abrupt pause in Sai's sketching. His frown deepens and he turns away at Sai's passive words of, "That may be so, but I am not the one that she loves."

* * *

><p>It's the first time they've talked in what feels like ages and Sakura hates the fact that it has to happen like this.<p>

"Ovarion cancer," She says into concerned blue eyes.

"What?" Naruto asks, nervous, worried, and highly confused. "What? I don't understand. What is that? What does it mean? Sakura-chan? What does it mean? You can fix this right? Whatever it is? It's ok, 'cause you can fix it right? Right?"

"Naruto," Sakura tries to soothe, but it's not working and she's not feeling confident enough to comfort. The truth is that she has no idea what the hell to do. This is something new and if they'd caught it sooner … or maybe if she'd been smarter … or maybe if her shishou was still around…

Shaking off her failures and pushing their baggage to the side, Sakura puts a hand to the blonde man's shoulder and looks him deep in the eyes, saying, "Naruto, you've got to calm down. Right now, you've got to be strong for her. Now calm down and let me explain."

But even as she does, Sakura knows she's only making it worse.

* * *

><p>Half a year has passed and Naruto's standing on the podium, accepting the title that he's dreamt of for what seems like forever. Kakashi's handing him the hat that Tsunade had passed on to him. Konoha now has two living, breathing Hokage. Even still, smiling and waving to their people, to his many friends that have become his family … it's just not enough. Not anymore. The first friend he's ever made is not in that crowd. The last Uchiha is no more and his wife is in the hospital still receiving experimental treatment that he's been told time and time again isn't exactly a cure.<p>

Vaguely, he thinks: _at least Sakura-chan's talking to me again._

But even that small fact brings little joy.

* * *

><p>A weak and emaciated Hinata lies beneath crisp, white sheets. Her chest rises and falls in the shallowest breaths and yet she still speaks. "Always wanted … to … tell you … something."<p>

"Don't talk, Hinata. Don't talk," Sakura shakily shushes the dying woman with tears in her eyes. As she kneels by the woman's bedside, she knows her friend is slipping fast even after doing everything she could to stop it. "Sh, you have to keep your strength, because he's coming for you. He is. I sent word and he'll be here any second. So, you just hold on. Ok? Just hold on. Please, Hinata, please, just hold on."

"Thank you … Sakura…" Hinata wheezes, while feebly reaching for her doctor and friend's hand.

Sakura takes it and squeezes it, presses it to her lips as she says in almost a prayer, "No, sh, Hinata, please, just sh. Please. Sh."

"…f-for letting …me …. love … him."

Fresh from an important meeting that he had quickly put on hold, Naruto enters the room. When he does, he finds a weeping, sobbing, wreck of a kunoichi pressing his wife's delicate hand to her tear-stained cheek. He has no idea what she's blubbering, but one thing is for certain. By her glassy eyes and vacant expression, his wife is gone and he's never felt so empty.

* * *

><p>Rain falls in sheets, soaking all gathered to the bone. It plasters their hair and chills their skin as their hearts mourn one of their flock that is now lost. The affair is grand and the mood somber as Konohagakure's two strongest shinobi stand on stone steps, each robed ninja on either side of a closed coffin. The picture above the black, lacquered wood is that of a demurely smiling woman, a kunoichi whose eyes are as white as the robes of her clan. She is friend to the masked Rokudaime and beloved wife to the yellow-haired Nanadaime. Uzumaki Hinata is also loving mother to each man, woman, and child who steps forward to pay their respects.<p>

At least, she is to all but one.

Coming to stand before that picture of quiet grace is one Haruno Sakura. White rose in hand, her emerald eyes burn into every splotch of ink and paint that makes up a woman that she had come to both love … and hate. She loved this woman for the ever present kindness in her heart, for the fairness she showed everyone—no matter their status—for the bravado for which she spoke on behalf of medical shinobi and kunoichi rights alike, for her unwavering friendship, and the blind faith she had in Sakura as a friend, a woman, a kunoichi and … a doctor. And, good God, she hates herself for admitting it, but she hated her, hated Hinata, hated her dearest friend, that poor fucking dying woman for having everything that she could never have, for loving a certain man without restraint as she had never been able to, because of a certain dark-haired male that still manages to haunt her dreams and nightmares alike.

Standing there, in front of her old sensei and the man whose love she had wholly taken for granted and had never fully returned, Sakura's warring feelings make her tremble and shake and not because of the chilled bite of the wet cold. No matter how hard she tries, how desperately she tries to kill such biting, unwarranted emotions, staring into those pupil-less, painted eyes, jealousy, hate, insignificance, pettiness, anger, guilt, love, and shame tears at her insides, makes her feel like a huge, ugly monster in sheep's clothing.

Fighting with such invisible yet almost tangible forces, the sourness in Sakura's stomach, hell, in her very soul, has her wanting to vomit, has her doubling over and falling to her knees.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so-so sorry," she numbly chants over and over again even as she feels strong arms and hands pulling her up. She doesn't know who it is offering their support, but she gives into it, melts into it, desperately tries to disappear into it, even as she mumbles repeatedly her words of repentance to a woman that she knows never deserved an ounce of her ire. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

Sai looks down at the woman he's dragging away that is all but wrapped around his drenched side and then he looks back to the blonde-haired man who had looked away as she'd fallen apart in front of his deceased wife's coffin. Brows knit and with his expression otherwise blank, Sai turns back around to look at the red archway that he's taking her to, back to the exit that will lead them to streets connecting to Sakura's tiny apartment. He has no idea if his words are the right ones to say, has no idea if they hold any truth, but he says them anyway, because he wants to believe and he needs her to believe them.

"Everything will be alright."

* * *

><p>A week has passed since Uzumaki Hinata's funeral. Sakura has used her vacation days to hold up in her room during that time and Sai is the only one she allows inside. However, right now, she's wishing that she never let him in.<p>

"You should talk to him."

"I— I can't."

"Why?"

"It's just— it's just not my place. Ok?"

"Are you not his friend?"

"We're not— We haven't— Look, things are just too different now. Besides, it … wouldn't be right."

"How so?"

"You— You wouldn't understand."

"You are afraid you would bring insult to his wife's memory. You are afraid to show comfort, because you still love him.

"I don't—"

"Do you not?"

"I— It wouldn't be right. Hinata was my friend and a part of me hated— It's because I couldn't save her that she— …There's no way that he doesn't,"—A long, drawn out, frustrated sigh—"The bottom line is that I couldn't save her, Sai. There's no way that a part of him, however small, doesn't hate me now."

"Would you? Would you hate yourself if you were in his shoes?"

A single tear rolls down her cheek as she thinks of herself after Sasuke's death. The truth hurts. It hurts so much so that she suddenly can't even breathe. "Yes. Yes, I would."

* * *

><p>Under haunted skies of white and grey, he sees her. Snowflakes cling to her hair and clothes. The years have been kind to his first love as she walks down the white-blanketed street, a fellow colleague easily chatting at her side. Her hair remains short, at least along the back. Her bottle-green eyes are curtained by long strands that reach her shoulders, each end clasped by matching emerald beads. Her uniform belies where she had garnered her needed skills: black calf-high boots above black spandex pants, a red and white v-neck blouse that's wrapped with a tie that knots at the side. The open, green cloak that hangs loose from her proud, pushed back shoulders is also familiar to all who sees it; the kanji written word for <em>Gamble<em> written down its back.

However, the twenty-something female, below, is no mere echo of a long passed woman whose stone-carved face eternally watches over their progression; she is a shinobi in her own right now. She is a kunoichi that commands an entire medical legion underneath her chakra-laden fist.

Four years ago, she was but a fresh-faced medical sensei passing down her arts to future budding medics, but now she is the woman in charge of all medicinal happenings at Konoha General. She is also currently not looking up to the Nanadaime's tower. The harsh fact is that their eyes no longer catch as often as they used to. In truth, their gazes only meet when duty permits. To be honest, it still hurts knowing that the baggage between them has become so heavy, almost burdensome, like their frayed red thread of fate could snap at any time. It's been quite some years since they'd first set out on a journey together to try and save a friend; it was a disastrous adventure that had started the dominos to fall. First—

_Sasuke…_

The name and the face conjured evokes phantom pains in Naruto's chest, makes his intestines coil and tighten like taut strings. It's a knee-jerk reaction, one that he has already come to terms with; it's one that he knows will never go away. Not fully. In truth, a part of him believes that he deserves the eternal torture; for he had once said to the raven-haired shinobi, "What sort of man deserves to be Hokage when he can't even save his best friend?" And he hadn't. Uchiha Sasuke's death had come by his own hands. It was the greatest failure of Naruto's entire life. It had made him question his acceptance of the title the Rokudaime (Kakashi) had later bestowed.

Then again, Sasuke's death wasn't Naruto's only failure. He knows that now. Flicking eyes from the portrait, on his desk, to the woman alive and roaming the streets outside his window, Naruto can't help but think of the painful realization he had come to so many years ago.

_I couldn't save you either. I couldn't save us._

**_To Be Continued_**


End file.
